The angel sculpture alone is worth the visit. I love that it's by a German. One of the nicest pieces is the window with Minneapolis in the background! The camel picture is one of my all-time favorites and I don't think I'd noticed the Grant Wood painting of West Branch - very fun. It didn't take long to learn that Minnesota is full of surprises, and one of those surprises at least for me was how vibrant the art scene is. Much to my husband's dismay, we visited three art museums if you count the sculpture garden as an art museum, which I do in Minneapolis.
I guess all art museums are full of surprises, which is what makes them so intriguing, but the MIA had more than its share of surprises. Did you notice the art in the picture above? That was the first surprise--a bronze body-less head on the front lawn.
Eros Bendato Screpolato by Polish artist Igor Mitoraj is 12 feet long, 7 feet tall, and 4, pounds. Translated, the title is something like "Eros in Cracked Bandages. Not even inside, and I was loving the art. We kicked off our tour with this fellow, The Doryphoros BC carved from marble by an unknown artist. It's a Roman copy of a Greek sculpture made in BC.
Couldn't it have just as easily been Bouquet Bearer? This sculpture, made of cast bronze, is one of the surprises of the museum. However, the big surprise for me is the artist: John Singer Sargent, the leading portrait painter of his time whose clientele were usually the rich and famous.
Portrait of Beethoven by German Franz von Stuck, captures so much of the composer's personality. The art label reads, "The intense fields of dark red and off-white color, and the composer's agitated face suggest the emotional impact, and the abyss of violence sometimes opened up by Beethoven's music.
